Wellington in the background, the evening before Kieran and Jess fly back to Melbourne

Geo: -41.2865, 174.776

Wellington looked like another attractive small city where work could be exciting and play interesting, helped by more sunny days with perfect blue skies, although the wind was chilly for a couple of days. Our first exploration was on the tram that took us up to the botanical gardens and a view of the city, reminding us of a the peak tram in Hong Kong, though much less busy. Muscle strain in my legs from the Tongariro crossing 2 days before continued to make walking up and down slopes and stairs agony. Its so much easier to be young! kess and Jess identified a funky fish resturant for our last meal together and then they went off to find designer beers and check out the night life ( although still only 8.30pm}while we found another tasty ice cream on our way back to HOME - our spacious rooms centrally placed behind the great Te Papa museum. So after a Sunday morning breakfast we spent 2 hours mainly at the early Maori exhibits to better understand the early history of this young country. We learnt about the first canoe boat from Polynesia chasing an Octupus south and then burying the

canoe they had arrived in to demonstrate they were staying and about how they got organised between their tribes with a council of kings and one Queen to lead them in negotiation with the English invaders. A history well documented in print by 1841 when the treaty with Britain was signed. We then took Kes and Jess to the airport, via a short stroll and coffee along a beach populated with energetic dogs of all breeds, jumping in and out of the waves. Its been great having them with us because they take us to different places to eat and we do different things like going fishing.It was still mid afternoon so we drove lazily round the Wellington foreshore watching the Inter Island ferry we would take the next day steam out of the harbour and then we went back to Museums. First the Sea and Maritime social history museum and following an amble in the sun, with another ice cream, along Queens Quay crowded with Sunday afternoon visitors and street performers back to Te Papa again. This is a wonderful spacious interactive museum, covering all aspects of NZ social life, farming and industry. I wanted to see the small

exhibition on Maori life today as they relocated in the cities to make a living. There were big exhibits about the changing landscape, volcanoes and earthquakes but we got thrown out at 6.00pm before we had sufficient time to take it all in.